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The 21-inch doll that learned your voice, called you Mommy, asked to be fed and pouted when she didn't get her way. Playmates put her on shelves in August 2005 at $99.99, and she turned out to be the surprise of that Christmas, with supplies running low in December.
The doll that actually eats, drinks, and fills a diaper—equal parts nurturing fantasy and gross-out chore simulator. The 90s versions talked, swallowed on their own, and even used a potty, making a generation of kids feel like very tired little parents.
The Kenner feeding doll built around one satisfying trick: as you tipped the spoon toward her mouth, the food vanished bite by bite, and the bottle emptied as she "drank." A nurturing toy whose whole appeal was that disappearing-food illusion, ready to run again and again.
Ruth Handler's fashion doll was already three decades old when the 90s arrived — then had one of its biggest decades anyway. 1992 alone delivered Totally Hair Barbie, the best-selling Barbie of all time, and the 'Math class is tough!' scandal. Every toybox had at least one; every sibling war featured a hostage.
The bendy doll with rubbery spaghetti-strand hair you could braid, bead, and restyle forever—plus snap-off hands, feet, and shoes to swap between friends. Half doll, half fidget toy, all late-90s.
Fashion dolls from MGA Entertainment launched in 2001; the original four 'girls with a passion for fashion' (Yasmin, Cloe, Jade, Sasha) had oversized heads, big almond eyes, glossy pouty lips, and removable snap-off feet, with edgy trend-forward outfits. They seriously challenged Barbie's dominance in the mid-2000s and sparked a long legal battle with Mattel.
The Cabbage Patch doll that "ate" its own plastic snacks—and became a holiday-season horror story when it wouldn't stop. With no off switch and no reverse, the motorized mouth kept pulling in whatever it caught, including kids' hair and fingers, and Mattel yanked it from shelves weeks after Christmas 1996.
Mattel's chatty animatronic fashion dolls that gossiped about clothes, boys, and shopping—and actually "knew" what you'd dressed them in. Sensors in their outfits and accessories let them react, and infrared in their shoes let them talk to each other.
Lavender mesh shirt, purple pleather vest, streaked blond hair, an earring in his left ear and a chrome ring on a chain around his neck. Mattel's 1993 attempt to make Ken "cooler" for little girls instead made him a camp icon, bought up by gay men until he sold out by Christmas.
Mattel's big-headed, pouty-lipped answer to Bratz: Barbie and her city friends Madison and Chelsea, named after New York City places and later packaged with DVDs. The New York Times said their "bulging, makeup-caked eyes" evoked their rival, and MGA sued.
The Barbie that was as tall as you were. Mattel's 1992 My Size Barbie stood about three feet high and came in a ballet outfit a little girl could take off the doll and wear herself, tiara included. It was the big-box Christmas present of the early 90s, and the doll that stared at you from the corner of the bedroom all night.
Galoob's pull-string flying fairy dolls: yank the cord and the foam-winged doll spun into the air and across the room — often straight into someone's face. Recalled by the millions in 2000.
Press the button and Barbie chirped one of her four phrases: pizza party, dream wedding, meet me at the mall. About one doll in a hundred carried "Math class is tough," and in 1992 that single line got Mattel scolded by math teachers, condemned by the AAUW, and parodied on The Simpsons.
Neon-haired, jewel-bellied good-luck trolls that clipped to pencils and crowded every desk and backpack. Invented by a Danish woodcutter in the 1950s, they rode a huge second wave of popularity in the early 1990s under names like Norfin.